


kiss me so sweet and so soft

by xombiebean



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Cuddling & Snuggling, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1780957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xombiebean/pseuds/xombiebean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last year, if Beau had imagined where he would be now, he never would have envisioned himself comforting tiny versions of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. </p><p>Or:</p><p>Sidney and Geno turn into little kids, and shenanigans ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kiss me so sweet and so soft

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song Fidelity by Regina Spektor. The story itself has been sitting on my computer since the off-season of the summer of 2013, and I just unearthed it and decided to post it. It takes place sometime during the 2012-2013 season, prior to Sidney Crosby's injury when he took a puck to the face.
> 
> This story is absolute crack, and it also features many appearances by the members of the Dupuis family. Just a head's up in case that is not your bag.

“So what you’re telling me is that sometime after practice, Sid and Geno somehow turned into little kids?” Dan asked, his forehead creased in disbelief.

“Sounds about right,” Neal said, shrugging.

“And they don’t remember us?”

“It seems like they just remember up to whatever age they are,” Kunitz threw in. “I’m guessing eight or nine.”

“I’m seven!” Sidney piped up, from the stall where he sat huddled with Geno.

“And Geno’s English?”

“Pretty nonexistent,” Neal said, “he knows, like, two words in English and one of them’s ‘hockey.’”

“How long does it last?”

“Don’t know,” Flower said, just as Tanger cut in, “I knew a guy in juniors who this happened to—lasted about a week.”

“I don’t know, man,” Neal said, “this happened to Kari Lehtonen back in Dallas, and it kept happening to him. He was a kid for a couple days, and then he went back to normal, and then the next month it happened again, for, like, a week.”

“So it’s a reoccurring condition?” Cookie asked, with a shit-eating grin.

“Goalie pressure,” Tanger said, shaking his head.

“All right,” Dan said, clapping his hands together, “so we’ll say they’re both out with injuries, and they should be back to normal in no time. Who wants to watch over them in the meantime?”

“Me,” Duper said, jerking his chin upward.

“You have enough children,” Flower said, “I’m taking them home with me.”

“ _What?_ ” Neal protested, “Geno likes me better. I should—”

“Nealer,” Paul Martin said, his calm, steady voice cutting through the verbal chaos. “You can’t even cook for yourself—how are you going to take care of two kids?”

“All you have in your fridge is beer!” yelled Flower.

“That’s not—I can—” Neal grumbled, as he sat down to remove his skates.

“Okay, Duper’ll take them for the first night,” Dan said, “and we’ll see how long this lasts.” Duper grinned smugly at Neal and Flower. “So,” Dan began, and his face was scrunched up again in confusion, “how did you guys explain to them what happened?”

 

 * * *

 

Beau found them in one of the smaller weightlifting rooms near the rink. Both of them looked terrified, standing in a puddle of hockey gear and swimming in jerseys that dwarfed their bodies. Sid’s chin had been trembling, Beau told Despres later, and Geno’s eyes were bright with unshed tears and wide as saucers in his attempt to contain them.

“Hey, no, it’s all right,” he said, kneeling down next to them. “You guys okay?”

“N—no,” Sid had hiccupped, looking distraught. “We got lost, and our moms are going to be _so worried_.”

Last year, if he had imagined where he would be now, he never would have envisioned himself comforting tiny versions of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. “I’m Beau,” he said, smiling at the two of them and sticking his hand out for Sid to shake, and then for Geno.

“Sidney,” Sid sniffled, and Geno followed with his name, his Russian accent lingering over the syllables, much heavier than usual, even compared to when he played it up in front of the reporters.

“You guys like hockey, right?” Beau asked, and his grin became genuine when Geno looked up at him hopefully and said, “Hockey?” Sid’s eyes widened, and he nodded eagerly at Beau.

“Well, good,” Beau said, “because I play for the Pittsburgh Penguins.” He felt oddly gratified by their awed gasps, and he continued, “Would you guys like to meet some more of the players?”

Geno looked to Sid in confusion, and Sid—shit, how had he not noticed that the two boys had been holding hands this whole time?—squeezed his hand and nodded furiously, bobbing up and down on his feet, unable to contain his excitement. Beau led the way to the locker room, and Sid and Geno trailed after him, still clutching each other’s hands, their feet sliding along the floor in socks that dwarfed their feet.

Beau stopped right in front of the entrance to the locker room. “Let me just,” he said, turning to face Sid and Geno, “go and give the guys a heads up, okay?” He gestured to where they were standing. “Wait right here, okay?” The two boys nodded, and Beau bolted into the locker room.

“What’s eating you, Sunshine?” Duper asked.

“Guys,” he said frantically, “something’s happened to Sid and Geno.”

“Funny,” Duper said before continuing to remove his gear.

“No, like, somehow they’re little again,” Beau said. “They’re waiting outside. They’ve, like, de-aged, or something, and they don’t remember me!”

“Good one,” Cooke called out.

“Hold on,” Beau said, and he ducked his head out of the locker room. “You guys can come in now,” he said, smiling reassuringly at them.

“Are you sure?” Sid asked, looking nervous. “We don’t want to bother you guys. . . .”

“No, c’mon, the guys are dying to meet you,” Beau cajoled.

Sid glanced at Geno, and then Geno was tugging Sid towards the locker room. They filed out and stood right next to Beau.

“ _The fuck?_ ” Flower asked, dropping his helmet in shock, and then his reflexes kicked in, and he managed to get out an apology for swearing before clamping his hand over his mouth. Everyone in the locker room was staring at Sid and Geno, speechless and incredulous, and the two boys began to fidget under the uncomfortable scrutiny and the awkward tension that had seeped into the locker room.

“ _Geno?”_ Duper said, his mouth open wide in shock. “ _Sid?_ ”

Sid and Geno looked unnerved that one of the players knew their names, and Sid edged minutely closer to Geno.

“Guys, they don’t—they don’t remember us,” Beau said weakly.

“Where are you two from?” Kunitz called out, walking towards them and crouching down to their level. “I’m Chris Kunitz,” he said, smiling comfortingly at them.

“I’m Sidney,” Sid said, polite despite his uncertainty at the situation. “And this is Geno. It’s nice to meet you. I’m from Cole Harbor, and Geno’s from Russia. He’s from Magnito—Magna—”

“Magnitogorsk,” Geno finished for him.

Sid flushed, color high up on his cheeks. “He’s teaching me how to say it right,” he said, “but it’s just _so hard_.” His voice tinged into a whine at the end of the sentence, and Kunitz had to suppress a smile. Beau felt a warm surge of relief that _someone_ was trying to act normal and not terrify the two young boys.

“Do you two remember how you got here?” Kunitz asked carefully.

Sid’s lip trembled, and he had the look of someone who was trying to be very, very brave. “We got lost,” he sniffled out.

“What, you took a right turn on your way home from school and wound up in Pittsburgh?” Flower asked, coming to stand behind Kunitz. Sid glanced up at him and began crying. “Shit, no— _sorry_ —don’t cry, it’s okay, Sid,” Flower said.

Geno looked distressed. “Okay, Sid,” he said, curving towards him and patting his shoulder. “Sid, okay,” he said, before uttering a stream of soft Russian words that seemed to soothe Sid slightly.

“I just—I just—I don’t remember!” Sid hiccupped, his voice shrill with panic. “We don’t _know_ ,” he stressed, looking piteously up at all the players who had surrounded them when Sid had begun crying.

“Sidney,” Tanger said very solemnly, “you don’t remember because a spell was cast on you two. It brought you here so you could learn hockey and practice with NHL players.”

Sid stared at him, studying him. “There’s no such thing as magic,” he said, dubious.

Beau wanted to throw his arms over his head in protest, because last week he hadn’t thought de-aging was possible or even a thing that could happen _what the fuck_ , and now he wouldn’t be surprised if the Easter Bunny invited Santa Claus to Sunday Brunch on Easter.

“It was the work of the Hockey Gods,” Duper said.

“The Hockey Gods,” Sid repeated, staring up at him. Duper held his gaze, and then Sid shrugged and said, “Okay,” apparently satisfied with their much-too-transparent explanation.

Geno glanced over at Sid. “Hockey?” he asked.

“Hockey,” Sid replied, nodding definitively.

 

 * * *

 

“Honey, I’m home,” Duper called out as he opened the front door and entered his house, the two boys in tow behind him. “Look what the stork brought!”

Carole-Lyne emerged in the entryway looking distinctly unimpressed. “Do you have another wife, or have you just taken to kidnapping children now?” she asked, as she took in the ragtag sight of little Sid and Geno behind him.

“I can explain,” he began, and then: “You’ll never believe what happened at work today.” He paused and handed Sid a bag of clothes that he had purchased on the way home from the rink. “Why don’t you two get dressed while I tell Carole-Lyne what happened?”

“Okay,” Sid said.

“The bathroom’s that way,” Carole-Lyne said, smiling at him and giving him a little push towards the bathroom. Geno followed closely behind him. When they heard the sound of the bathroom door close, Carole-Lyne whipped back around to face him. “Explain,” she said.

 

 * * *

 

Maeva cornered them as they exited the bathroom. “So the stork brought you guys?” she asked, her tone challenging, her eyes narrowed. Kody stood behind her, with his arms crossed over his chest. Despite his valiant effort, he did not look half as intimidating as Maeva, who had honed her skills during slumber party games that seemed innocent but easily became cutthroat.

Sid stared at her, his eyes wide, before glancing at Kody and then back at her. “No,” he said, painfully earnest, “the Hockey Gods.”

“The Hockey Gods,” she said. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“Yes,” Sid said without a hint of hesitation in his voice, as he squared his chin and held her gaze.

Forty-five minutes later, Pascal and Carole-Lyne found the children in the living room. Geno and Kody were locked in a fight-to-the-death battle of Mario Kart, while Sid and Maeva sat sideways on the couch, where Sid was doing her hair in a French braid while she intermittently instructed him on how to do it in between gossiping about her friends at school. Unlike Kody who sat criss-cross-apple-sauce with his back curved like a particularly well-loved bow, Geno sat propped against the edge of the couch. Sid sat with one of his legs dangling over the side of the sofa, pressed lightly against Geno’s arm, which didn’t seem to bother Geno.

“And Sara likes Jimmy, but _he_ likes Casey, so he asked _me_ what to do, and I told him that he should just be honest with them, but Sara’s liked Jimmy longer than Casey, so he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings—who do _you_ like, Sidney?” she asked, abruptly changing the direction of the conversation.

“No one,” he stuttered. His face flushed almost instantaneously, and although Maeva wasn’t facing him, it was as if she knew that she had struck gold. She grinned like a cat that had caught the canary.

“ _No_ one?” she echoed, drawing out the syllables.

“I like this girl at my school?” Sid offered helpfully. “Her name’s Cecelia? But everyone calls her Ceecee.”

Geno’s car flew straight off the Rainbow Road, and he muttered sharply in Russian. “Dude!” Kody exclaimed gleefully. “I am kicking your butt.”

“Kids, dinner time,” Carole-Lyne said. “Go wash your hands.”

“But, Mama, Sidney’s only halfway done braiding my hair!” Maeva protested.

“I need to start it over again anyway—it got messed up halfway through,” Sid said.

Kody turned off the Xbox. “We’re done. I already kicked Geno’s butt halfway to China,” he said, and he raced past his parents to the bathroom to wash his hands. Geno glowered before following behind him, and Sid leaped up to join them.

“Papa,” Maeva began, after she slowly got up from the couch. “Does Sidney and Geno know Uncle Sid and Uncle Geno?” she asked keenly, as she stared guilelessly up at Duper.

Duper glanced over at his wife for help, but she was too busy trying not to laugh at the predicament he had gotten himself into. “No, sweetie,” he said. “We just nicknamed Geno after Geno because they have the same first name.”

“Like Sidney?” she asked sweetly.

 

 * * *

 

After dinner (during which Sid stared at the sweet potato wedges on his plate as if they were UFOs, and Zoe giggled at Sid for his reluctance to eat his vegetables), Duper and Carole-Lyne showed Sid and Geno where they’d be sleeping. They got to choose between the fold-out couch in the study and the guest room that had cardboard boxes stored in one corner. Sid just shrugged and set his bags full of new clothes and hockey gear by the sofa. As they walked from one room to another, Geno marveled at how huge Duper’s house was—he had never seen anything like it.

Carole-Lyne gave both of them new toothbrushes to use, plucking them out from the bathroom cabinet under the sink, and she said something that made Sid gigglehonk as she placed them on the bathroom counter. Sid and Geno played with Zoe and Lola while Kody and Maeva did their homework, piling their books in front of them and spreading their worksheets out on the dining room table.

Zoe and Lola had a vast variety of toys, but their favorites were the penguin stuffed animals. They drafted Sid and Geno into helping act out an elaborate wedding ceremony for their favorite penguins; it culminated with the Sid and Geno penguins exchanging a series of Eskimo kisses that made Zoe and Lola giggle and clap their hands in delight, which in turn set off Sid’s honking laugh.

Exhausted by the confusing and slightly terrifying day, Geno fell asleep within minutes after his head hit the pillow.

Geno jerked awake in the middle of the night, disoriented and confused about his unfamiliar surroundings, to the sound of someone tremulously calling his name from the doorway. He blinked rapidly to clear the sleepy haze from his eyes and squinted at the dark yet diminutive silhouette. “ _Sid_?” he asked, after his mind defogged and he placed the voice.

“Geno,” Sid said, a quavering note in voice, and instinctively Geno lifted the covers and gestured for Sid to join him. Sid crawled under the covers and mumbled a stream of English words that all ran into each other.

“Shhh,” Geno murmured, pulling Sid towards him and tucking Sid’s head under his chin. Geno used to have nightmares where no one could see him that made him feel as if he was going out of his mind with terror and loneliness; he always woke from them with his chest heaving and his heart pounding frantically. He wondered what Sid dreamed about, what filled his heart with dread. “It’s okay, Sid,” he whispered, as he rubbed Sid’s back soothingly. “Your nightmares can’t get you here, you’re safe, I’ve got you, I’ll protect you, Sid. Nothing’s going to get through me.”

He felt his heart expand and then flutter out of his chest and tuck itself away into one of Sid’s hands, and he knew: he loved Sid. His mama had always told him to be wary of giving his gentle, loving heart away, but he had no choice, no hidden options.

Sid clutched at him, but slowly, ever so slowly, Geno heard his breathing even out and felt his hands relax from their chokeholds on his shirt.

Falling asleep was not so easy for Geno the second time around.

 

 * * *

 

Beau arrived to practice to find the locker room in utter chaos—well, in more chaos than it was usually. Sid stood behind Tanger in his stall, French braiding his hair. “Hey, motherfuckers, guess what position Sid likes to play,” Flower shouted to the rest of the locker room. Sid’s head snapped up at the mention of his name, a blush already coloring his cheeks and his eyes open wide in surprise. “He wants to be a goalie! Best position in the league right here,” he crowed gleefully.

“That’s ‘cause he’s crazy just like you,” Cookie said.

“You’re just jealous, motherfucker!”

Sid’s eyes opened wider at the repeated swear words, and Orpik said, “Don’t curse in front of the kids, Flower.”

“Yeah, watch your freakin’ language,” Neal called.

“Oh fuck, sorry, you guys,” Flower said, turning towards Sid and Geno. Sid, whose mother threatened to wash his mouth out with soap the first time he repeated a word he had heard from a kid at recess and never let him even say _crap_ , stared at Flower in shock.

“If you want to learn English, Geno,” Cookie said, “that’s a good place for you to start: _fuck_.”

“Fuck?” Geno repeated, raising the inflection on the word in question. Cookie nodded encouragingly, and Sid looked over at him. “Fuck,” Geno said again, a little more confidently this time. Sid burst into helpless laughter, and Geno grinned brilliantly at Sid and his uncontrollable laugh.

“What, it’s okay for him to curse, but I can’t?” Flower asked in mock outrage.

“How old are you even?” Tanger asked. He turned to look over at Flower, but Sid swatted at his head and whined, “Don’t move—I’m almost done—you’re going to mess up your French braid, and I got it _perfect_ this time.”

“Forget hockey,” Flower said, “you could be a pro hairdresser when you grow up.”

Sid pursed his lips in disagreement. “My daddy said no, ‘cause it’s not prac-ti-cal,” he said, sounding out all of the syllables in the last word.

“Don’t worry, Sid,” Tanger said. “You’ll be the best at whatever you choose to do when you grow up.”

“Dude, good job,” Beau said to Duper, as they survived the scene before them. Neal had snuck up on Geno and launched a surprise tickle attack that had Geno trying to duck away from the onslaught while trying to retaliate. His laugh was contagious. “They’re still alive and in one piece.”

“Unlike some people, I actually know how to take care of little human beings,” Duper said loftily, and then grinned widely. “You heard Sunshine,” he called out to the rest of the room. “I’m Sid and Geno’s official guardian now!”

“What the _fuh_ —udge,” Neal shouted in outrage, catching himself just in time.

“That’s not fair, you ugly bastard,” Flower chimed in.

Dan let the boys sit on the bench during practice, and Sid and Geno sat with their eyes wide open in wonder, clutching at each other whenever they saw one of the Penguins do something amazing. Geno prattled at Sid in Russian, joy bursting from each word, until Sid scrunched up his nose and whined, “Ge _nooo_ , I don’t understand Russian.”

Geno turned to him and looked pointedly at him. “Sid,” he said, pointing out onto the ice, “look,” and he continued with a rush of Russian. Sid honked out a laugh, unable to control himself.

Most of the team stayed around after practice to play shinny with Sid and Geno. They drafted Sid and Geno on the same team at the boys’ insistence, and neither Sid nor Geno could stop grinning the entire time they were playing.

 

 * * *

 

Carole-Lyne and Duper made PB&J sandwiches as an after-school/practice snack that the children devoured. Zoe was adamant that her sandwich have no crust and that the peanut butter and jelly be spread on separate pieces of bread and then joined together, a process which Sid, who preferred for his jam to be spread right over his peanut butter, overlooked with consternation.

Maeva began trying to drag Geno out of the kitchen and away from the rest of the kids when he was halfway through demolishing his second sandwich.

“Maeva,” Carole-Lyne scolded, “let him finish his sandwich first!”

“But Mama!” Maeva said. “It’s important.”

Geno, bemused at what exactly was going on, placed his sandwich back on its plate and followed Maeva to the study. She closed the door behind him and then said, “I know you like Sid,” she said, whirling on him.

“Sid?” Geno asked, going from bemused to completely lost.

“Oh for the love of—” She threw her hands up in the air, turned on the computer sitting in the middle of the desk, and pulled up Google Translate. After typing a few words into the box, she gestured for Geno to join her.

He glanced at the Russian translation of the sentence she had typed into the little white box on the screen, and then he squinted at her, utter confusion etched in his face. “Yes?” he said, clearly not following what she was trying to get at.

“No,” she said, “I know you _like_ Sid.”

“Yes?” he said again.

She erased the sentence on the screen and then typed in a few more words, and Geno looked back up at the Russian words that appeared while she watched him expectantly.

He froze.

Slowly, he looked at Maeva—he was the very picture of a deer caught in the headlights, unsure whether fight or flight was the appropriate response—and he seemed ready to bolt and run back to Russia, passports and language barriers and age issues be damned.

“It’s okay,” she said, and she placed her hand on his arm to comfort him.

“No,” he stuttered out, “not—no—not _Sid_.”

“It’s okay,” she repeated. “Sid loves you, Geno.”

He shook his head as if trying to clear it, and she reached for the keyboard again and typed something else into Google Translate. _He loves you too_ , it read.

 

 * * *

 

Sid didn’t bother trying to sleep by himself that night; he headed straight to Geno’s room after they had brushed their teeth and washed up for bed and after Sid had gone to the study to change into his pajamas.

Geno had barely finished putting on his Spiderman pajamas when his door creaked open, and Sid peeked his head out from around the door. “Geno?” he asked hesitantly, and then he broke off into a stream of English.

“Okay, Sid,” Geno said, gesturing for him to come into the room and then patting the bed beside him.

Sid grinned brilliantly, and his eyes crinkled into happy little half-moons. “Thanks,” he said, and he crawled under the covers on what, after only one night, had become Sid’s side of the bed. Geno settled on his side of the bed; he fidgeted nervously until Sid began speaking again in English, his tone strangely earnest. “Geno,” Sid said, and Geno looked over at him and held his gaze. “Spasibo,” Sid said. Geno wrinkled his brow, unsure of what Sid was saying, until he repeated it almost insistently, and Geno couldn’t help himself: he barked out a laugh.

“What?” Sid asked, a hint of a whine already creeping into his voice. “Ge _no_.”

Sid’s frustration made Geno laugh harder at how Sid had mangled the Russian word beyond recognition. “Spasibo,” Geno said, “no—” and he tried to imitate Sid’s horrible pronunciation before giving up and laughing.

Sid glowered at him, but he couldn’t resist Geno’s laughter, and he honked out a laugh. “Spasibo,” he said, trying to mimic exactly what Geno had said and still screwing it up beyond the point of recognition. Geno bit his lip, trying to contain his laughter, and Sid insisted, “ _Spasibo_.”

“Spasibo,” Geno said, laughing helplessly as Sid tried again.

“Not funny, Geno,” Sid whined. He thumped Geno on the arm, but Geno couldn’t stop himself. Sid curled himself towards Geno and rested his head on his shoulder. Geno stilled, remembering what Maeva had dragged him aside to talk to about, and Sid hummed out his appreciation.

“Good night, Geno,” he said. His eyes fluttered shut, and Geno was momentarily mesmerized by how Sid’s eyelashes looked against the curve of his cheek.

“ _Sid_ ,” Geno said, his heart yearning, but he couldn’t find the English equivalents of what he wanted to tell him. English was a stupid language, with all of its indefinite meanings. Maeva was right: he was a goner. His throat clenched, and he wished—he wished—

Sid’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at Geno, his eyes impossibly round in the darkness. He said something soft and indistinct that curled itself around Geno’s spine, and Geno felt as if he was drowning, and he could barely keep his head above water, the current was so strong. Sid studied him, and, seemingly satisfied by what he had found, he smiled. He leaned up and closed the distance between them and kissed Geno very quickly, before ducking his head back down and hiding his face in Geno’s shoulder. Geno’s face flushed, and he grinned widely. He felt suffused with joy, and his heart threatened to explode. He wanted to fist pump, to celly—he felt as if he had just scored the game-winning, tie-breaking goal on a breakaway—and his heart was singing.

Sid uncovered his face long enough to sneak a peak of Geno’s, and he smiled widely, his eyes crinkling into happy little half-moons when he saw Geno’s  answering grin.

“Good night, Geno,” Sid said, blushing wildly.

“Sleep well, Sid,” Geno murmured, ducking his head to press a kiss into Sid’s hair. He was too keyed up to sleep, his heat beating out the rhythm of a song that he had not known until now, but Sid clutched at his hand, and Geno tried to make himself relax.

He was not getting very good sleep at the Dupuis household, and it was all Sid’s fault.

 

 * * *

 

Geno woke up curled around someone else, their legs tangled, the blankets shoved low over their hips. Reflexively, he pressed a kiss into curly hair, and then he froze.

“Geno?” Sid asked sleepily.

Panicking, Geno shoved himself away, accidentally taking the blankets with him, and landed on the floor with a loud thud. His heart jackhammered in his chest, and he huddled on the floor as he tried to clear the haze fogging up his mind.

“Geno?” Sid asked again. Geno heard some shuffling sounds, and then Sid was looking down on him, his arms braced on the edge of the bed. “Are you okay?”

Geno shook his head to clear it, but he still felt foggy and uncertain. “Sid, where—where clothes? Why we sleeping together? Last I remember—” He stopped, unsure of what he could recall last. He remembered—Sid grinning at him with the endearing gap in his teeth, the warmth in his chest he felt whenever he looked at Sid, the panic he felt when Beau—

“I kissed you,” Sid finished for him, smiling sleepily at him.

“We turned into children,” Geno said, and then he stopped as Sid’s statement filtered through his still sleep-hazy brain. “ _What?_ ”

“I kissed you,” Sid said, but his smile disappeared, and he looked—

Worried, as if he didn’t know that Geno wanted him back, as if the first time Geno felt safe while fleeing his homeland wasn’t when he saw Sid waiting for him on Mario Lemieux’s front porch.

“Look, it doesn’t have to—I didn’t mean for it—I was just so _homesick_ —” Sid was already backpedaling, and Geno felt his heart seize.

“Is okay, Sid,” he said, smiling reassuringly at him. “I want you to.”

“You want—” And then Sid kissed him, surging up against him until Geno broke away.

“Morning breath,” he complained as he wrinkled his nose.

“Oh, sorry,” Sid said, and he pulled back from where he was dangerously close to falling off the bed and on top of Geno. “Come back up here,” he said petulantly, “and don’t hog the covers.

“Sid’s ass too big to share blanket,” Geno chirped, grinning teasingly at him. “Take up whole bed, of course I fall off.”

“Weak,” Sid said. He didn’t bother to retort to Geno’s lazy chirp, just settled back against Geno after he climbed back into bed and spread the blanket over them.

“ _Shit_ ,” Geno said, as he suddenly remembered where they were.

“What?”

“We in Duper’s house, Sid, what if—”

He never got to finish his sentence, because Duper called out, “Time for breakfast, sleepyheads!” as he pulled open the bedroom door.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Sid muttered weakly as Geno snapped out the Russian equivalent.

Duper’s face went slack with shock, and then his mouth curved into an evil smirk as he asked, “Did you two sleep well last night?”

Sid blushed violently. “Can we borrow some of your clothes?” he asked, staring down at the blankets.

“Duh,” Duper said. “I don’t want you two traumatizing my children.” Turning his head towards the hallway, he yelled, “Kids, guess which of your uncles came to visit!” The maniacal gleam had returned in his eyes when he glanced back at them. “We have so much blackmail on you two,” he said, grinning gleefully. “So, so much blackmail.”

Sid groaned.

Geno looked over at Sid and smiled as Duper backed out of the room and shut the door behind him, smugly happy that Sid wanted him, that he had kissed him, that this was tangible, that this was _real_.

Sid looked over at him, and when he saw Geno’s grin, he looked petulant. “Why aren’t you upset? Don’t you care that none of the rookies will respect us anymore?”

“Not do anything embarrassing,” Geno said, still smiling. “Just act cute and Russian.”

Sid dropped his head into his hands. “None of you are on my side,” he mumbled.

Geno leaned over and kissed his neck, right below his ear. “Always on your side, Sid,” he said, his lips ghosting over Sid’s neck as his mouth shaped out the words; he felt far too satisfied when he heard Sid’s breath hitch.

“Geno,” Sid said warningly. “We are not—”

Geno kissed him again, effectively cutting off Sid’s sentence, and Sid turned to glower at him. “Not funny,” he whined.

“Is okay, Sid,” he said. “I take you very seriously.”

 

 * * *

 

Neal filled Beau in on what had gone down at the Dupuis household, and Beau stared at him, utterly incredulous. “Bullshit,” Beau said, unable to control himself. “You’re telling me this whole Sid-and-Geno-turning-into-kids thing was some kind of Groundhog Day shit?”

Neal shrugged. “Would Duper lie?”

The answer was unequivocally _yes, of course, yes, always_ , but Beau glanced over at Sid and Geno who were sitting next to each other, Sid laughing uncontrollably at something Geno had said while Cooke looked on with an arch expression of disbelief, and he thought, _well, maybe_.

After all, stranger things have happened.

 

 

 

And:

 

“Only those emotionally stunted idiots would have to turn into children to confess they loved each other,” Neal continued. “Everyone on the team already knew.”

“I—” _didn’t_ , Beau started to say, when Paulie coughed pointedly.

“That was _one_ time,” Neal protested.

“I think it counts, James,” Paulie said resolutely.

“ _What?_ ” Beau asked. “Did you turn into a kid, too?”

“ _No_ ,” Neal said, as Paulie laughed.

“He turned into a golden retriever.”

“Which is so much better,” Neal said indignantly.

“If you say so,” Paulie said, shrugging.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at seashineandbrine. :)


End file.
